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The first device capable of recording sound signals was Léon Scott de Martinville’s 1857
called the “phonautograph.” His device could not, however, reproduce sound signals, but the idea was adapted by Emile Berliner into a disc music player he called the “gramophone.” -
Digital Music Age.
Digital music is, in short, the binary “ones and zeros” version of its analog equivalent, and recording studios have used it for a number of years. Only in recent years, however, have recording studios allowed electronic distribution of media, though it is in part due to consumer-level technology that allowed people to begin dealing with digital music on their own. -
Preceding Berliner’s 1887 invention.
however, was Thomas Edison’s tinfoil cylinder phonograph, which made the first recording of the human voice in 1877. -
The History of Digital Audio: Music Players from Edison to the iPod.
The term “digital audio player” most commonly refers to “portable music players that use nonremovable, erasable digital media instead of removable media as a means for storing and playing digital music recordings” (Holmes 2006). -
Sony developed the first digital audio recording devices to be used by professional studios in 1978.
The next year, Sony revolutionized the world of personal audio with the introduction of the Walkman portable audio cassette player, initially called the “Soundabout.”